I share this affirmation of the goodness of creation and the good of politics. But one of the dangers of eagerly diving in to the political sphere is that it tends to underestimate the strength of the currents already swirling around in that "sphere." In other words, such Pylesque eagerness tends to think of politics just as a matter of strategy (and hence getting the
right strategy in place), as something that we
do, and underestimates the
formative impact of political practices, that they do something
to us. It is here that I think Augustine's more nuanced analysis of the politics of the empire has something to teach us in the twenty-first century. Because he defines the political in terms of
love, and because the formation of our loves is bound up with
worship, Augustine is primed to recognize what we might call the "liturgical" power of political practices, which engenders critical nuance.
Originally Posted by inudesu
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